And your enemies even closer! [Tanzo]

Tanzo hesitated, tactically speaking, and legally speaking... staying behind was the right call. It was the responsible thing to do, the thing Tanzo the perfect student and rising hero would do. This was what he did, he held himself back, he acted responsibly even when everyone around him didn't, he was the voice of reason, of caution, of support. He worked hard to keep everyone happy and put his needs second. By almost every metric... waiting for Nocturne was the right call. It's what he would always do...

But he got to his feet, and sent Nocturne another text as he made his decision
"I can't sit and wait, Shinja was brought into the villain's base already. There's no time. Get here when you can, I'm going in to try make sure neither of us die until you do."

He hit send, then put his phone away

"I am going to be in SO much trouble later. But I think just this once it's ok if I don't hold back." Tanzo said, cracking a smile as molten metal began coating his body again, decking him out in new, stronger, and more carefully forged, titanium armor. This wouldn't yield to the enemy bullets quite so easily this time, and he was able to take the time to leave slots open for his heat vents to still work this time. "Let's go save our friend." he said as he forged a nasty-looking metal club to go with the armor

It was ok if he got to be the irresponsible one once in a while right? These villains had no idea what was coming for them this time.

When the base lit up like it did, Tanzo internally groaned, that much light would make Nocturne very vulnerable, if there were no shadows he'd be... helpless... wait a minute

Gears began turning in his head, Air Raid had come after them remarkably fast for how little snooping they'd done. They'd literally just gotten the old reports from Shinja's family, no way did they have people monitoring that when the case had been cold for decades. So why had they moved on them so fast? Jet was a factor he supposed, maybe he'd been snooping on his own, but how'd they even know they were meeting with him?

And they had captured Shinja, lured her into the base, they'd been trying to bring him in too. But had made no effort to shoot his phone even while he was escaping. Shinja was Nocturne's intern, and their base seemed tailor made to shut Nocturne down. And they'd done hits on top heroes before...

"ohhhh... fuck..." Tanzo said as a theory emerged from the connecting dots. He wasn't sure, but one explanation did nicely sum up all these odd details. Why they wanted them alive, why they'd been tracking them, why they'd bombed every building except theirs to bring their fake police in to capture them, the design of the base, everything added together. They wanted to do a hit on Nocturne, and Shinja was the bait.... and HE had called Nocturne here.

Looking at the army of villains coming to meet him, the grunts were of no concern, small arms like theirs wouldn't pierce his newly forged armor that he'd made to counter those laser villains and the jet plane's heavy guns. They were barely worth noticing even in large numbers, so long as he didn't stand still and let them dog pile him

So that jet and the two villains in the sky were the concern. He didn't have a tree to throw at the jet this time, plus while it was so high in the air he'd never land a hit. He had to wait for it to come for an attack before he could feasibly shoot it down. The other villains in the sky were similar. Tanzo had long ranged options, but against highly mobile targets at long range most of those options weren't worth deploying, he was a close to mid range fighter. Once they closed in he could deal with them

For now though he was on a time limit, he either needed to find Shinja and get them out of here, or take out whatever backup generator they had before Nocturne could get here. Preferably both... so unfortunately for the mass of grunts in front of him he no longer had time to be gentle

Charging forward, Tanzo's momentum built up, his armor deflecting or stopping the small arms fire coming at him as he brandished his club and began swingign, between his momentum, his weight, the weight of the club, and his strength... dozens of grunts would be sent flying with each swing as Tanzo made a beeline for the base's interior to start searching for his targets... and force the villains to engage him in closer quarters

Tanzo cursed as the entrance to the base got sealed, that was going to be annoying, but there were definitely other ways in... and worst case scenario he was more than capable of brute forcing his way through some debris given some time. It would be exhausting trying to clear the cave entrance though, and not something he could just casually do while under attack.

Speaking of attacks the incoming boulders and bombs were both threats. First thing was first, the bombs, they were coming in faster and would do more damage if he let them land. Pointing his palm at the array of incoming explosives, he repeated the same trick he'd used when attempting to blow the plane out of the sky earlier, firing armor piercing bullets and purposefully not cooling them properly so they would pierce the bombshells and ignite the volatile explosives within. Though he supposed these bombs were armed and already ready to explode, so the heat element was probably overkill. Still either way the bombs would explode in midair like fireworks as Tanzo fired faster and more aggressively than before, he wasn't screwing around here and letting any of those hit him.

Now was the boulders. Tanzo planted his feet and brandished his club, there were quite a few rocks falling towards him, but it was fine, he wasn't about to lose to some measly rocks

"haaaaaaaa!" Tanzo roared as he swung the club furiously, smashing each boulder that came at him except for the very last one, which he pivoted on one foot as he caught it with his club, spun, and launched it into the sky like baseball hurtling for the jet plane as it retreated from it's bombing run, making sure to lead his shot "batter up!"

With both incoming attacks handled, Tanzo would try to get some distance from Lola while searching for another entrance to the base. He had seriously misjudged the vigilante group... he'd assumed they were all more like Jet because Flora was a prominent figure, but this Lola was clearly a psychopath taking glee in the murder. He appreciated the help and she was definitely on their side... Kako's side at minimum... but he wasn't keen on being collateral damage to the bloodlust or in associating himself with her. He was a bit concerned that Kako was associating with people like this and what kind of influence they could have on her... but Kako wasn't a psychopath. If she did start killing, he at least had faith she wouldn't be doing it for fun or to innocents... he couldn't say he approved of this side of the njpd, but he still wanted his friend's happiness, so he'd keep quiet about it for now and see how things played out.

More immediately though, he had to worry about the battle, and finding an entrance to get inside the base to find Shinja and the backup generator.

They want to kill Nocturne. I'm safe. Need to get out of here.

Tanzo's phone blared with the message, visible even in the thick fog rolling in. The visibility was a problem, even in this fog he wasn't going to be very well hidden, and it made targeting the enemies harder... but he didn't need to take out all the enemies. Lola was doing that well enough, he just needed to take out threats to Nocturne before he got here, and anyone who got in the way of his and Shinja's retreat.

That meant that backup generator had to go. He listened carefully for it, determining the direction... but in the way were razor wires. If they were just normal wires he'd have just barreled through, even his base body could shrug flimsy things like that off, his titanium armored form had even less to worry about from such things. But these were quirk-generated wires and had to be viewed with more caution.

First up though, the incoming rocket, a direct hit from that would hurt, armor or no. So Tanzo wouldn't let it get close, pointing his hand at it and firing another superheated armor piercing bullet to detonate the missile in midair. Some shrapnel would still buffet him, but with his suit of armor and natural durability stuff like that wasn't an issue.

It was time for a test, Tanzo would touch the wires with his titanium club, pushing them aside until they were bunched together, then he'd fire a bit of molten metal from his spare hand to wrap around the point the wires were bunched together at, wrapping it around the wires and heating them up to try and sever them, or at least bind them together so he could move past safely.

If it proved impossible to interact with these wires at all, even with the strongest metal alloy he could forge save for "that" then he was going to have to change tactics. But so long as they couldn't slice through the strongest of natural metals easily he could work around them and get things done.

Tanzo was seriously going to need to have a long talk with Flora about this Lola person. He'd agreed to turn a blind eye to the group's vigilantism to a degree, but this woman was clearly not stable. The way she fought and killed with reckless abandon, and now just unleashing a supermove like that regardless of if it might hit allies. Hell if he hadn't been as heavy as he was it WOULD have hit him... if Kako was going to be part of a group alongside people like this, he was going to have to scrutinize it more closely.

Still in the short term, the whirlwind was extremely helpful. For one thing it cleared the fog up for a moment, letting Tanzo get a full view of the battlefield and where he needed to go, letting him locate the generator he was looking to break, and giving him a chance to look for a way inside. It also did the equally if not more important job of giving him a much needed breather from that oppressive heat, the wind itself also helped cool him off. He had been keeping his quirk usage to a minimum and relying on the equipment he'd forged to slow down the overheat process, but he was definitely feeling the effects. He still had his steam explosion technique to cool himself back down, it'd be a waste to use it solely for that instead of as an attack but it was an option if he needed to start using his quirk actively again.

Tanzo used the opening while his pursuer was still fighting the wind to sprint to the generator, the moment the wind died down enough, he hurled his club at it like a javelin, the mass of titanium spearing through the thing and definitely disabling it, either from the damage itself or from the subsequent short circuit as the generator's power was conducted through the club in a shower of sparks and electronical fires. It was a shame to lose the club, but he couldn't really afford to be next to a generator as it broke in case the sparks and stuff started conducting through HIM.

That was one problem solved. Without power, the base's setup to pin and kill Nocturne would be disabled, no doubt they had backup plans though. And he still didn't know where Shinja or Kako were. He heard gunfire inside, those laser trick shot quirks... they were a problem. He had no doubt that they were even more dangerous indoors where there was less room to evade... where they fighting Shinja? Nocturne or his sidekicks? Some unidentified fourth party? Too many questions, too many variables, and time was not his ally.

As the lighting of the base died, and the only illumination would come from the sparking generator. Tanzo took a deep breath, and sent Shinja a text.

"I'm playing my ace. Get outside, it won't be hard to spot me in a moment. Get here"

If he was using this, it'd be best to get the others near him, he could shield them that way... and Shinja could use her fans to help regulate his temperature a bit.

In the dim glow from the generator, Tanzo saw the wire villain chasing him down.






"You know. There's a quote you villains should really take to heart. A wise man fears three things." Tanzo said as he raised an arm towards his face

"A sea in storm." The stormy wind howled as if on cue

"A night with no moon" The generator's sparks were the only light, the moon hidden behind the thick clouds. Even as large as he was, Tanzo was barely a silhouette in this darkness

"And the anger" Tanzo said as his jaw began to expand as if he was about to consume metal "of a gentle man"



He bit down on his arm, tearing off a huge chunk of his own metallic flesh, blood splattered across the ground as the metal went down his throat, and the arm fell limp, too damaged to support it's own weight anymore.

"This move doesn't even have a name, swore I'd never use it. But I trained with it anyway... just in case. Just know that what happens next... every bit of it is your fault." Tanzo said through gritted teeth

And then the battlefield wasn't dark anymore. A red glow came from Tanzo as each of his nozzles began to release a constant stream of molten metal, it floated up in the air, steam rising from it as raindrops hit each stream of metal... whatever he was forging had to be big if he was using this much metal... but the metal wasn't cooling. Even as rain struck it and should've cooled it down, it only seemed to glow brighter as more and more metal joined the constantly swaying and shifting streams of molten fluid, illuminating the battlefield in an ominous red light.

And then they shot out, arcing through the air to surround Bo as they closed in, they moved not as if they were being forged into something, but simply as extensions of Tanzo's body, dozens of deadly hands of molten death reaching out and grasping at the villain, each weaving and changing course to cut off escape routes and strike at him relentlessly.

Any nearby grunts would be struck at too, the metal wrapping around their limbs and leaving behind molten shackles that would only then begin cooling, inflicting severe burns and pain as well as chaining them up. Bo would suffer a similar fate if he was caught, but he would be bound up much more thoroughly to ensure he couldn't use his threads to escape. Tanzo wasn't holding back to avoid hurting them anymore, now they would see just how much he'd been holding himself back all this time, and learn precisely why.

The string drill initially would plow through the molten metal without any issue, buying Bo time to retreat, but while the molten metal was softer and less solid than hardened metal, the drill would soon slow to a stop before reaching Tanzo as it met more strands of metal. It was reminiscent of trying to punch through rubber, while the material gave at first, it didn't break easily, the more you pushed through it the harder it became to push further. The more molten metal the drill came in contact with, the more it slowed down.

"Sorry to break it to you, but my defenses aren't any weaker than before, a measly little drill isn't going to reach me... but more egregiously... You're still viewing this as a fight, and it's not." he said as he raised his good arm up in the air, looking up at Bo and the flying girl he'd joined up with. The one he'd seen Shinja flying with earlier. There wasn't time to dwell on the implications of her being here while Shinja was not, he could still hear fighting elsewhere in the battlefield. And towards the edge of the compound he saw reinforcements had arrived. Good, now to give them a clear signal where to come.

The many strands of molten metal began swirling in the air around his raised palm, spiraling towards a rapidly growing central orb of glowing metal lava that swelled in size and luminosity until it was larger than Tanzo himself

"This fight was over the moment I started taking it seriously." Tanzo said, throwing his arm forward as the massive orb of molten metal surged forward towards Bo and Jet with alarming speed, there'd be no overpowering this much mass and metal with a direct attack like that string drill or the beams of fire from Jet, but as it reached them it would break apart into an explosion of smaller metal orbs meant to slam into them and coat whatever limb or torso they hit in heavy metal. Such a big attack detonating at close range would be difficult to avoid, but it would seem as if Tanzo was leaving himself open to a counterattack by committing this much metal to a single big strike

Of course, that was a calculated "opening" meant to bait out anyone else hiding looking to ambush him, or bait the two he was facing into overcommitting to an attack themselves if they managed to avoid the detonation and close in, he could pull his metal back quickly, and had just enough left in reserve to defend himself that he wasn't showing yet.

More important than that though, was the real goal of his attack. It was bright, and with so much brightness so close to the two airborne villains, even up in the air the spaces behind them would be full of shadow. It was a huge opening for a certain hero to use to strike them down before they even realized he'd arrived.